It is well-accepted that the developing infant requires a source of calcium, as part of a nutritionally complete meal. Human breast milk provides sufficient calcium to provide nutritional requirements. However, it is often necessary to provide calcium supplementation to nutritional compositions used as sole source nutrition for infants, in order to provide the desired amount of calcium. Typically, this calcium supplementation takes the form of added calcium lactate, calcium sulfate, calcium chloride, calcium citrate, calcium phosphate, calcium D-saccharate, calcium aspartate, calcium propionate, or combinations thereof.
While generally sufficient for providing bioavailable calcium, the foregoing calcium salts but when dissociated, the carbohydrate moieties of the foregoing calcium salts are not believed to have a beneficial prebiotic effect, which can be desirable.
In addition, other factors present in human breast milk are believed to be beneficial to the developing body. For instance, functional proteins such as transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-β) play a significant role in many processes necessary for health and development, in infants and children, as well as adults.
More specifically, TGF-β is the general name for a family of polypeptides, the members of which have multifunctional regulatory activities. Three differentially regulated mammalian isoforms (termed TGF-β1, TGF-β2 and TGF-β3) play important roles in a multitude of processes in the developing infant, child and adult. TGF-β is a 25-kDa homodimeric cytokine known to mediate pleiotropic functions both within the immune system and systemically, it is expressed in several cell types in the intestinal mucosal including lymphocytes, epithelial cells, macrophages, and stromal cells as well as by T-cells, neutrophils, macrophages, epithelial cells, fibroblasts, platelets, osteoblasts, osteoclasts and others. In addition, TGF-β is present in human breast milk and may influence multiple aspects of infant health and development.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a nutritional formula which provides a combination of nutrients designed to encourage healthy development and growth, especially in an infant. Included in the nutritional formula should be a calcium source which provides sufficient bioavailable calcium while having buffering properties more similar to human milk, as compared to conventional calcium compounds, and advantageously, a prebiotic effect. Additionally, the nutritional formula should be well tolerated in animals, especially human infants and should not produce or cause excess gas, abdominal distension, bloating or diarrhea.